


Happiness is a Warm Gun and a Happy Christmas

by redpetra



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Skyfall spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpetra/pseuds/redpetra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The double-0 numbers were wild cards, weapons, granted with a license to kill and consistently asked to use it.  They were also incurably, horribly accustomed to playing the most God-awful pranks in existence on their technical support staff.  Apparently, it was "fun".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which there is Cocoa

**Author's Note:**

> This is a plot-heavy story based around the Christmas advent prompt list found here: http://ailea.tumblr.com/post/36560557766 in which 007 plays pranks on Q, Q learns to be formidable (or at least assertive) with him outside of the field, and all hell breaks loose. Obviously I won't finish this before Christmas but hopefully you can forgive me for that. 
> 
> Unbeta-ed and un-Brit-picked, though I did my darndest. Feel free to comment with suggestions/improvements. 
> 
> Warnings and ratings may come later, if I feel that sex and/or angst can find a happy home here. The title is also subject to change.

"You've brought me cocoa."

It was a simple enough concept, but Q couldn't seem to wrap his head around it. He stared at the mug for a long, tense moment, and then looked up at the blonde man who had set it down before him moments ago. There was suspicion in his eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses.

"Why have you brought me cocoa?" he asked, and Bond simply laughed and perched on the edge of Q's desk as though he belonged there. He didn't -- all he'd managed to do was burrow into the Quartermaster's comfortable Monday morning routine and throw everything off balance. The man's thigh was pressed against Q's laptop, for God's sake! And now Q had to rearrange the cables and files littering his desk to make room for a second mug on the surface, this one (unlike the first, with its cargo of delicate Earl Grey stimulant) filled with what appeared to be rich, dark cocoa.

There was even one solitary marshmallow bobbing in the liquid. A bloody marshmallow!

Q didn't like it. It wasn't part of his daily routine and he wasn't in any condition to accept it, certainly not from Bond. The double-0 agent had just returned from two weeks of compassionate leave following the death of the previous M and the demolition of his childhood home; and for his first official act in the new-and-improved MI-6 headquarters to be bringing the Quartermaster a cup of cocoa… Well, it did not sit well with Q.

Not at all.

"As a gesture of goodwill," Bond told him, his tone casual. "And to thank you for your part in the Skyfall incident. You could have lost your job and your life, doing what you did." Q looked up at the agent, the angle forcing him to crane his neck uncomfortably, and narrowed his eyes. It did seem above-board -- after all, Bond's actions had caused Q, Tanner, and M to be tied up in an Internal Affairs investigation that had taken over the entire MI-6 headquarters for three days while the IA hounds (humans, of course, but after the stress of those many hours at their mercy Q was wont to dehumanize them) scoured records and files, interviewed all of the administrative and Q-Branch staff, and basically wreaked professional havoc only to give the three men in question a metaphorical slap on the wrist and skip away with their undeserved pride in tow -- but Q had learned quickly to trust no one in MI-6, especially not the double-0 numbers. They were wild cards, weapons, granted with a license to kill and consistently asked to use it.

They were also incurably, horribly accustomed to playing the most God-awful pranks in existence on their technical support staff. Apparently, it was "fun".

"You could have written a card," Q found himself saying, his fingers curling spasmodically around the handle of the newly-acquired mug. "Or treated me to dinner at a time and place of my choosing."

Bond's eyes held a smirk that hadn't yet made its way to his lips. "I'm sensing some slight mistrust, Quartermaster," he said calmly, still in that maddeningly casual tone, still sitting on Q's desk as though it were his own.

Q leaned back in his chair and rolled it slightly away from the desk, trying to make it seem as though he were taking just as casual a stance on this strange conversation as the double-0, rather than putting himself in a position where looking up at Bond wouldn't hurt his neck. "Bring me back the PPK and then we'll talk about trust," he responded, surprised and somewhat proud of how bland he'd managed to make his tone.

"Q", Bond said -- and suddenly he was serious, his eyes earnest, his hand catching Q's wrist and making the Quartermaster's mind stutter and blank in nervousness and confusion -- "This isn't a trick. I promise." He tugged lightly, pulling Q and the rolling desk chair close again, and then placed the Quartermaster's hand on the handle of the mug, which he gripped instinctually. "Just drink it. Please?"

There was such vulnerability in Bond's voice, such pleading in his eyes, that Q found himself lifting the mug almost without thought. The double-0 had lost so much in recent years, and it must have weighed heavily on him. Q thought he could see it in the leaden lines of his face: age, pain, regret… The least he could do, he thought, was drink the damn cocoa.

Bond's attention, fixed raptly on Q, was diverted by a gentle knock at the open door. "There you are," Eve Moneypenny sighed, hands on her hips. "007, I have a message for you from M. He says that your return to active service does not immediately give you the right to raid Medical's prescription stores for your own personal use without filling out the proper documentation."

Q, who had just brought the mug tentatively to his lips, reacted immediately. He flung the ceramic vessel away from him as though it were covered in spiders, sending hot cocoa flying in a surprisingly straight line over his computer and nearly a quarter of the paperwork on his desk as the mug landed and shattered in the bin on the other side of the room. Bond broke into instant hysterical laughter and hopped off the desk, messing Q's dark, already-unruly hair with one hand before he pranced off, leaving Q to stare at the mess he made with despair while Eve stared at him with a look that communicated very clearly just how insane she thought he was.

"You might want to clean that up," she said dismissively before following Bond's path from the room. Q groaned loudly and dropped his head, letting it hit the desk with a loud thunk. He repeated this motion for several minutes, eventually adding volatile curse words since the pain didn't provide nearly enough cathartisis. He was interrupted by Tanner, who poked his head into the room to ask:

"Have you seen my green mug? It's not in the break room. My mother made it for me."

Q thought of the mug in his waste bin, of the handmade look of it and its decidedly viridescent hue, and groaned louder.

\--

Bond walked into Q's office without knocking and Q was promptly on his guard. It was nearing the end of his workday and his paperwork had all been filed into three neat piles: 'Requisition Forms' which had to be submitted before the end of hours today, 'Work Orders' which he would bring down to Q-Branch tomorrow morning, and 'Maybe Next Quarter Work Orders' which he would keep cycling through on his days in the Administrative department until the deadline ran out even though he knew Q-Branch would never be able to afford the cost of completing them. The files he had destroyed due to Bond's hilarious little joke had been reprinted and replaced by the Graphics and Printing department that morning, at considerable cost to Q's pride and pocketbook. Even with that particular side-trip and the twenty-minute laughing fit it engendered in Monica, the G'n'P head, through which Q was forced to smile meekly while internally he shrivelled up into a tiny ball of humiliation and embarrassment, he had managed to complete all of the gruellingly dull paperwork that characterized a typical Monday.

Tomorrow, however, he'd get to go back to what he loved: inventing and coding, troubleshooting problems for the other technical analysts; maybe even providing technical support for a double-0 if some pressing assignment came up. That is, he thought glumly, if he lived through this encounter with 007.

"Place cleans up well," Bond began at exactly the same time that Q snapped: "What do you want?"

The agent raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. In one hand he held a black box which he slowly extended toward Q, as though afraid the Quartermaster would bolt if he made any sudden movements. Which, to be fair, was probably a realistic assessment of the situation.

"I want you to look after this for me," Bond said slowly. Q regarded the box, his expression dubious.

"Is it a bomb?" he asked, unable to keep the suspicion from his voice. For once, Bond didn't smile. Instead, his jaw clenched tightly for a few seconds before he visibly forced himself to release it.

"No," he answered, everything from his tone to his body language as cold as ice. "It's…"

He didn't need to finish. Q suddenly understood and leapt at the box, clutching it to him as though it were a child he'd just saved from a burning bus. He was fully aware what M and Moneypenny had spent the day doing; what document they had spent the day poring over. He may not have drunk the cocoa, but this was something he could do without question.

"Of course," he said, nodding vigourously. "Of course. I'll keep it safe." To emphasize his point he put the box on one of the high shelves that circled the walls of his administrative office. James Bond, the longest-living double-0 number and possibly the most dangerous man in London, with more in-action kills under his belt than any Secret Service agent since World War II, relaxed noticeably and gave what appeared to be a genuine smile. Q stared, dumbfounded, at the man before him -- so completely changed from the man he knew -- until Bond switched back into his old self, nodded at Q with a sarcastic tilt to his mouth, and sauntered out.

Q glanced back at the box on his shelf and actively stopped himself from wondering why Bond had chosen him, of all people, to care for it.

Then McDougall, acting head of Q-Branch on Mondays and Fridays while Q was locked away in the Administrative department with his unforgiving mass of paperwork, entered breathlessly with a stack of work orders and requisition forms and Q was immediately back to work. He was both impressed and upset by this development: normally the Q-Branch paperwork wasn't done until midday on Tuesdays, which left Q scrambling around to file requisitions before the Materials department went for lunch. While having the forms in his hand on Monday night took that added stress away and the work orders gave him an idea of what Q-Branch had been brainstorming while he'd been cooped up, it also meant that he would need to scramble to have everything signed off and sent out within the next half hour.

McDougall left apologetically, and in the sudden silence Q could hear shouting somewhere above him. Eyes wide, he popped his head into the corridor to see Eve scurrying down the stairs.

"007 was just informed that his next assignment is to pass all of his evaluations," she explained in answer to Q's raised eyebrow. "He's not happy about it." She nearly dove into the break room, where Q knew she would be hiding out until the shrapnel stopped falling.

Suddenly glad for the final surge of paperwork, Q got to it.

\--

There were three more forms in the pile with ten minutes left on the clock when James Bond burst through the door to Q's office in a maelstrom of firey rage, and Q thought dolefully of the days before 007's return to work and how quiet they'd been. Tanner and Moneypenny always knocked, he reflected sadly, and decided to begin locking his door from then on. Then he realized that Bond was looking at him as though expecting a response.

"Sorry?" he asked meekly, swallowing hard. Bond rolled his eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh.

"I said," he grumbled, his voice deeper and rougher than Q ever remembered hearing it before. "That M is forcing me to retake my fit-for-service tests, and you have to help me pass them."

Q just stared. When his eyes felt dry, he blinked before staring some more. "Why on earth do I have to do that?" he said finally.

"Because you, my dear Quartermaster, are the go-to technical support for double-0s, and technical support is what I need." There was venom in Bond's tone, a sickly sort of venom that you didn't notice was killing you until your skin started peeling off.

"I can't possibly help you with the physical elements." Q nearly stuttered in his haste to come up with an objection to this ridiculous idea, but Bond simply rolled his eyes and leaned on Q's desk with both hands, bringing his face too far into Q's personal space for the Quartermaster to be comfortable.

"I don't need help with the physical elements," he snapped. "I trained every day while I was on leave. It's the psychological test I'll cock up if left to my own judgement." He sighed again and stood up straight, giving Q a chance to breathe again. "You've read my personnel file." It was structured almost as a question. Phrases such as 'pathological narcissism', 'borderline sociopathy', 'emotional trauma', and 'considered psychologically unfit for active service' came to Q's mind and he nodded. "You know I won't be allowed back into the field. And you know I _have_ to be."

Q bit back a groan. Bond was right, and it irked him to think so. 007 was the best agent the MI-6 could produce, and he was still alert and able to make clear and rational decisions. Yet Q also knew that James' anarchical tendencies and distain for many forms of authority would always result in a less-than-stellar psychological profile.

Bond was right; thinking it twice in so many seconds made Q grimace with distaste. The Quartermaster _had_ to help his double-0 agent. For the benefit of Queen and Country.

"I have --" Q checked his watch, a slim and stylish Bremont Victory that had been a gift from his elder brother upon his promotion to Quartermaster. "-- eight minutes to sign these forms and get them to Materials." He pulled the next file toward him and opened it, nearly letting out a sigh of relief when he saw that it was a standard request for which the form has been filled out correctly. "If you want my help, come down to Q-Branch at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

If Bond was relieved, it didn't show on his face. "Thank you," he said firmly, heading for the door.

"And 007?" Q called after him, forcing Bond to turn in the doorway to look back. "Try not to be late."


	2. In Which there is Carolling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two: In Which there is Carolling
> 
> The Quartermaster was, in many senses, the 'mom' of this department. When Mom was happy, everyone was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a plot-heavy story based around the Christmas advent prompt list found here: http://ailea.tumblr.com/post/36560557766 in which 007 plays pranks on Q, Q learns to be formidable (or at least assertive) with him outside of the field, and all hell breaks loose. 
> 
> Unbeta-ed and un-Brit-picked, though I did my darndest. Feel free to comment with suggestions/improvements.
> 
> Warnings and ratings may come later, if I feel that sex and/or angst can find a happy home here. The title is also subject to change.
> 
> \--
> 
> This chapter has very little 00Q interaction; it's mainly used to explain how I believe the MI-6 headquarters operates. NOTE: THIS IS ENTIRELY A FABRICATION OF MY IMAGINATION. I DO NOT AT ALL EXPECT IT TO ACTUALLY WORK THIS WAY, NOR SHOULD ANYONE BELIEVE THIS IS REALITY. Just had to say that.
> 
> Sorry for the delay; I hope you all don't mind staying in the Christmas spirit for a while.

Tuesday morning was cold and crisp, the sky a frigid grey but not dark enough to threaten snow. Q made sure to don a pair of fleece-lined leather gloves and turned his coat collar up against the chill as he waited for the bus at the stop three blocks from his flat. He waited at a different stop every single day -- sometimes taking entirely different buses, if he felt particularly unsafe. It was an irritating but necessary habit, one that had been impressed upon him during a pseudo-kidnapping arranged by the old M a week after his assignment to Q-Branch. He had managed -- through sheer force of will, adrenaline, and vague kinaesthetic memories of his time in the fencing club during his first year at uni -- to escape the clutches of what he later learned were MI-6 agents with some shaky slight-of-hand and by beating one of them over the head with a chair leg. He had learned his lesson and now he lived it faithfully, taking unusual routes to HQ and swapping them around on a sporadic, randomized schedule.

These precautions hadn't been necessary when he took the Tube. It had been so easy for him to disappear into the throng of people during rush hour; to keep his head down, read a book, and be just generally invisible to anyone who might be looking. Discretion was one of his strong points, and he hadn't needed any extra training on that score at the excessively brutal personal protection 'boot camp' that all technical analysts were forced to undergo upon their induction into the ranks of MI-6. Q prided himself (silently, of course) on being much like a Hobbit, able to pass unseen if he chose to do so.

But that had only been useful when he rode the Tube to work, something he hadn't done for several weeks, ever since an explosion in the floor of a tunnel had sent an entire train barrelling down at a double-0 agent in his care. As he waited for the bus in the cold and watched the sun rise slowly between the slightly ramshackle buildings of the neighbourhood adjacent to his own, he realized glumly that eventually, this job would ruin every mode of transportation for him so that he was reduced to working from home until someone (most likely Q himself) invented particle-based teleportation -- a plan for which has been sitting in his 'Maybe Next Quarter Work Orders' pile for nearly a month now.

Today's bus route was particularly protracted, taking him halfway around the city before he transferred to another bus to make his way back down to the Thames and MI-6. It was a course he'd been saving for when he felt especially vulnerable -- mainly due to the ungodly hour at which it forced him into the street -- and his use of it today had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that 007 had returned to work the previous day. It was simply due to the feeling in the air, to his instincts that were niggling uncomfortably in the back of his mind, to the weather, to…

He continued his mental litany of reasons why he'd chosen to take possibly the most complicated journey available to Vauxhall until the bus pulled up beside him. He dug his Oyster card from his pocket with some difficulty and climbed into the vehicle. The driver began pulling away from the curb even before Q swiped, making the young man stumble and nearly fall, much to the apparent amusement of the half-dozen other patrons in attendance. Really, thought Q as he found a seat, it would be safest just to walk.

\--

His journey took over two hours, but by the time he arrived at the London headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service Q was wide awake and well-rested, having slept for the majority of the journey with music pouring into his ears from the highly-personalized iPod Touch he carried with him at all times. Even with the long journey, he was still one of the first people to arrive in the Administrative department. The place was nearly deserted as he unlocked his office, packed his personal computer and the work orders he'd sorted the previous day into the designer messenger bag an ex-girlfriend had given him years ago, and looped his fingers through the handle of his very favourite Scrabble-tile mug.

He met Eve in the break room, where she was boiling water in the kettle for tea.

"Heading down to Q-Branch?" she asked, which was a staple of their Tuesday-morning preludes before she went off to do whatever it was she did for M -- everything, he assumed.

"As long as war doesn't break out before I get there," he responded, the words slipping from him like well-rehearsed dialogue. Q and Moneypenny had daily routines that never changed; their morning meetings always consisted of the same words, the same actions, the same shared looks, and Q loved them. It was a delightful little ritual of theirs, and he was glad to have found someone who took as much joy in small protocols as he did.

Eve smiled her Tuesday-morning smile and dropped a bag of the finest Earl Grey tea into his mug. "I'll see what I can do," she promised as the kettle started to screech at an uncomfortably high pitch that Q knew from experience was an F# above high C. Why Administration kept a whistling kettle when there were so many other, less irritating options, Q would never understand; but there was something to be said about the harshness of the tone, as it added an extra shock to his system that the tea itself could never manage.

Q put his mug down and nudged it into the line of tea-bag-laden vessels Eve had laid out before her. With practiced ease she poured the kettle, one smooth motion down the line that filled every cup perfectly without spilling so much as a drop on the counter. Q watched her do it, as he always did, and was still unable to keep the awe from his face. She was truly a talented woman, somehow simultaneously cultured and feral. For some reason, Q's mind snapped to 007 and his face twisted in annoyance briefly. No doubt the double-0 agent had already slept with Eve. Q wasn't entirely sure why that bothered him.

"Have a lovely day," he said, his tone friendly as he scooped up his mug again and raised it to her in a casual salute. She mimicked him with her own mug, a terra-cotta piece that was intricate in its simplicity, a delicate swirling patina in the clay. With a nod, he left the break room and headed for the elevator that would bring him down into the belly of London, where Q-Branch had kept their headquarters even after the rest of MI-6 had moved back into the quickly-repaired building. As dank and dark as the tunnels were, it was far less likely that the public would be sent into panicked frenzies by the various bangs, crashes, and booms that often emanated from Q-Branch if the division were contained neatly below ground.

As the elevator descended, a gentle A 440 tone marked out each passing level. Basement, parking, sub-basement one, sub-basement two, and then the box slowed, the note sounded twice in a cheerful manner, and the door opened to reveal Q's favourite place in all of London.

Q-Branch, with its bright, stark lighting and banks of computers, wires exposed, was nearly empty. McDougall, his thatch of dry red hair mussed and his freckles standing out in sharp relief against his milky-pail skin, yawned widely and waved lazily at Q as he trudged over to his desk at the head of the room and plopped into his chair. Q grinned and guzzled a mouthful of tea gratefully as he headed to his own station, next to McDougall's but nearly twice as large and about half as tidy. Q was the only person in Q-Branch who knew McDougall's name: to everyone else, the red-headed middle-aged man was simply R. Q understood the alphabetical progression, but he had yet to meet N, O, and P and so doubted that MI-6 had chosen the monikers with any sort of logical process. M was the Chief of Staff of the Secret Intelligence Service Branch in London and gave his orders directly to Q. There were no steps of seniority between them, nor did anyone else in the building carry an alphabetized pseudonym. Q supposed the titles were left over from a less advanced time, when it was more difficult to conceal one's identity electronically -- but still, he found himself thinking about the rather glaring disconnect far more often than was probably necessary.

Shaking his head to clear the familiar thoughts away, Q dragged his personal laptop from his bag and connected it to the Q-Branch network with a few feet of clear, understated wire. From his left he heard R's low chuckle, as he did every morning, and ignored it as per custom. It was against policy, strictly speaking, to bring personal computers into the workplace -- especially after Q's magnificently disastrous cock-up during the Skyfall incident -- but no one in Q-Branch had ever reported him to the higher-ups. There was loyalty in that basement, and loyalty was something that Q valued above all else.

Said loyalty and camaraderie was thick in the air that day. Q's delight at having a Tuesday morning free of the typical hectic rush to and from Materials had spilled out of him and into those around him, infecting everyone within a 200-foot radius with cheer and brilliance. Teams got together and began claiming work orders, and the usual arguments that often shook the cornet walls of Q-Branch were notoriously absent. Everyone was in high spirits today, ready and willing to produce brilliant and awe-inspiring work -- work that would have made them famous in the wider world, were they not contractually forbidden to publish academic papers or patents of any kind.

The Quartermaster was, in many senses, the 'mom' of this department. When Mom was happy, everyone was happy.

The jovial atmosphere persevered until 11:00 am, when Q gave up hope that Bond would even attempt to keep their scheduled appointment. It was as though a collective shudder passed through Q-Branch when the tapered black hand of his watch flicked judgementally to the 12. Q felt his bad mood rising like bile in his throat and tried to suppress it, to prevent the corresponding pollution of the brilliant minds who depended on him, but the vicious annoyance was persistent. By 11:03, Q-Branch was silent but for the clicking of keys and the occasional short comment, passed with ranker between teammates.

It was almost lucky, then, that at 11:05, the jaunty double-tone of the elevator sounded, ringing through the nearly-silent room with a near-frightening loudness. Everyone looked up and watched as the silver doors scrolled open, and then eyes and mouths were all widening in surprise as person after person strode out confidently. They set themselves up in a broad semi-circle, two people deep, the vibrant red and green of their clothes and elf hats clashing in mood with the cold concrete walls and efficient metal desks around them.

"Gooooooood morning, Q-Branch!" Monica from the Graphics and Printing department jingled the stash of bells in her hand, grinning broadly. "We've come to deliver a very important material-" There were a few grudging chuckles. Q recognized several people from the Materials department, including Melissa, Peggy, and Hausemann, whose citizenship documents Q had been asked to investigate upon his application to the Secret Intelligence Service. "-Holiday cheer!" She blew into a pitch pipe, sending a tone (F#, an octave below the Admin department's kettle) scurrying around the group, to be picked up, matched, and split into harmonic resonance. Q groaned, turning away as they broke into an upbeat rendition of Jingle Bells; for once, however, his feelings were not mimetically seared onto the hearts of his department. He caught sight of grinning faces, laughing eyes, and even heard the off-pitch strains of a few technicians joining in with the carollers.

Smiling despite himself, he made his way through the throng congregating around the singing troupe, intending to grab a prototype that had been left on his desk a few minutes before 11. He was desperate to bring it into the weapons testing lab and see if the lazier sighting array really did mark out a perfect five-point non-lethal shot grid, even on a moving target -- though if he were being more honest with himself, Q would admit that he took a visceral, childlike pleasure in shooting things by himself in the lab. It was a vice; one that he gave in to as often as possible.

His plans were thwarted, however, by the man who was sitting at his desk, his feet up on the surface and Q's laptop resting on his thighs. He appeared to be playing Solitaire.

"Don't tell me you set this all up to distract me from the fact that you're more than an hour late," Q sighed. His words were incredulous but his tone was resigned. Of course he had. Q should have expected something like this.

"Fine," Bond said nonchalantly, dragging a five of diamonds on top of a six of spades. "I won't."

"You are insufferable." Q shut his laptop with one long finger and lifted it out of Bond's lap, noticing with no small pleasure that it created a small series of wrinkles in the normally-well-pressed trousers, just above the knee.

Bond swung his legs off the desk, making a space of Q to place the computer as the agent stood up. "Obviously not," he countered, his smirk bleeding into his voice. "Since you continue to suffer me."

Sighing heavily, Q jerked his head at the door leading into the un-underbelly of MI-6. "Come on, then," he snapped, less venomously than he intended. 

Q led the way toward the door, unaware of the grin growing on the man behind him.


End file.
